Poll: Americans don't get ACA information from trusted sources

A new poll found that most information Americans receive about the Affordable Care Act doesn't come from their most trusted sources.

The poll, released Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that 33 percent of respondents had heard "some" or "a lot" about the forthcoming online insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, created by the ACA, an 11-point increase from June.

Eighty-one percent of respondents said that they had heard "something" about the ACA within the last month from news media outlets, such as cable news, newspapers, online news or radio, however only 8 percent of respondents described themselves as placing "a lot" of trust in the media.

This was followed by 49 percent who said that they had heard about the healthcare reform law from friends and family. The survey showed a similar disparity between how many respondents talked to friends and family and how many said they trusted them "a lot"--only 18 percent, in this case. The third most frequently-cited source was online social networks, which only 3 percent of respondents believe to be generally reliable.

Meanwhile, 44 percent of respondents said that they placed a lot of trust in doctors and nurses, making them the most credible source among those polled; however, only 22 percent of people said that they had heard something about the ACA from these sources. A disparity also existed for state and federal health agencies, which are trusted by a third of respondents but were only a source of healthcare reform information for one in six people.

Similarly, a March Kaiser poll found that many Americans are misinformed about the ACA's provisions, with 57 percent believing it creates a government-facilitated healthcare plan. That poll found that the law's popularity among doctors was on the rise.

FEATURED ADVISOR

Jeremy Tucker, D.O., is the medical director of the emergency department at 103-bed MedStar St. Mary's Hospital in Leonardtown, Md., as well as a partner at Medical Emergency Professionals (MEP), a Germantown, Md.-based physician-owned emergency medicine group, which has six facilities in Maryland and one in Bristol, Conn. In addition to his role as medical director, he oversees utilization, patient experience and provider education for MEP and serves on its risk management committee.